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I keep hearing about Dish investing in 3D, just how much would we be talking about? They already have a HD DVR that supports 3D, the 922, so they might actually make some money on upgrade fees and higher monthly lease charges from folks wanting 3D, besides a couple PPV's. A 3D SBS channel takes the same bandwidth as a 2D HD channel so if Dish has the bandwidth available they could add it. Guess just trying to see how much of an investment we're talking about?

BetaMax was top quality video, stereo, and the best pause in the industry, its only demise was due to hi quality it gave less recording time....So lets be honest, it was the cheap population that cared more about recording time than they did quality!!!!

Were that has anything to do with 3D is an apple to a orange!!

What about Lazer Disks?

Yes, Beta gave better quality, but only at the Beta 1 speed and 1 hour play time. When you used the Beta 2 speed to get 2 hours you got the same quality as VHS. Sony wanted BIG$$$ for Beta machines, VHS prices were lower. I spent a lot of time resurrecting this before going with VHS. At the time of Beta-VHS wars most people had 10~15 year old color TVs and couldn't see the difference anyway.

Define "a lot"... Every 3D channel takes bandwidth that could have been an HD channel that everyone can watch or about a dozen SD channels.

Right now Dish only has one receiver that officially supports 3D. To develop more would take money and time... and customers would have to be willing to upgrade to those receivers and that takes more money and time for Dish to create the receivers and get them installed.

The big problem Dish will have is people will leave in droves as 3D catches on and it is much more difficult (and costly) to get them back.

Really? People keep predicting this. Dish was the leader in HD at first, then fell behind for about a year to DirecTV. All that year people predicted the mass exodus of Dish customers... and it never happened. Dish eventually added most of those channels and now even has some that DirecTV still doesn't! (of course DirecTV also has HD that Dish doesn't too).

So... the customers are not going to suddenly run from Dish over 3D either... especially not now when the adoption rate is so low.

Consider... not all of the customers who own a 3DTV are actually using it for 3D most of the time. Heck, I wager there are still 3DTV and HDTV people in large numbers out there who don't subscribe to an HD package too!

So... a large investment in 3D when the customers seem lukewarm to it, seems unwise... when there is a limited amount of content and only a few channels right now... and Dish could jump in the game 1, 2, or maybe 3 years from now and have just as much 3D as everyone else.

Also, more time Dish procrastinates, more channels will go Directv exclusive. Then, where is dish going to get content from ?

That's not going to happen any more than HD channels went exclusive. Yes, there have been a couple of exclusive HD channels... but by and large most of them are available to all providers. Content providers would be short-sighted themselves if they limited carriage to one company while trying to expand their customer base.

I keep hearing about Dish investing in 3D, just how much would we be talking about? They already have a HD DVR that supports 3D, the 922, so they might actually make some money on upgrade fees and higher monthly lease charges from folks wanting 3D, besides a couple PPV's.

This works both ways... IF Dish saw a lot of people willing to spend $200 to upgrade to the 922, then they might say "hey, let's invest more in 3D for those customers"... but as the 922 has been slower to adopt, I suspect, that tells Dish that right now customers might want things but don't want to pay for them.

Are customers going to want to pay $5 more per month for a 3D channel? Nobody knows the answer to that I don't think.

A 3D SBS channel takes the same bandwidth as a 2D HD channel so if Dish has the bandwidth available they could add it.

Another twist here too...

People freak out about Dish "down-rezzing" their HD from 1920x1080 to 1440x1080... and want "full HD".... but then would be willing to take 960x1080 resolution in 3D? That seems odd to me.

While Dish adding a 3D channel or two might not cause a bunch of new subs maybe by not doing so is or reason for losing subs? And Stewart, still don't understand your 'large investment' reasoning. You agree that the 922 does support 3D so no need to spend any additional money to develop a new STB, if Dish had any 3D channels then maybe they'd sell more of them. On the who would spend $5/month for 3D comment, so don't charge for it, DIRECTV and Comcast don't charge, that's the number one and two providers. Just saying by not offering any 3D channels Dish might be losing some of those higher ARPU customers that they'd like to have.

While Dish adding a 3D channel or two might not cause a bunch of new subs maybe by not doing so is or reason for losing subs? And Stewart, still don't understand your 'large investment' reasoning. You agree that the 922 does support 3D so no need to spend any additional money to develop a new STB, if Dish had any 3D channels then maybe they'd sell more of them. On the who would spend $5/month for 3D comment, so don't charge for it, DIRECTV and Comcast don't charge, that's the number one and two providers. Just saying by not offering any 3D channels Dish might be losing some of those higher ARPU customers that they'd like to have.

All I'm saying is that the market doesn't seem to support a huge interest in 3D at this point. Theatrical 3D movies have not been raking it in this summer as the studios expected... and if that trend continues, expect them to pull back on 3D support.

There was never a mass exodus when Dish was behind DirecTV in HD... still no mass exodus with DirecTV having more sports... so why expect a mass exodus over 3D?

Giving DirecTV credit where it is due... they are leading with 3D right now... but are they gaining lots of subscribers because of it? The numbers don't support that because they aren't growing any faster now than they were before they added 3D content.

I also never said the investment itself was necessarily "huge"... but that it will cost Dish more now than it will cost in a few years... so why waste time, bandwidth, and money on 3D for a very small market today... when Dish can wait and see if it stays around.

IF 3D goes away, then win to Dish for saving the money! IF 3D sticks around and grows, then Dish can add some 3D channels in a few years and be right in the thick of it.

Even the majority of people on this forum aren't demanding 3D... and we are the tech-savvy early-adopters... Most of Dish's customers are still SD-only customers! So... no need to rush to spend any money on 3D when most of your money comes from SD, then HD, and only a small amount asking for 3D.

Several problems with 3D. Two types of glasses are butting heads, Passive and Active. Active is better and passive is much cheaper. They are not interchangable so which do you go with? Can you say Beta vs VHS? It's estimated that 10% of the population cannot watch 3D for physical reasons. Bummer. Several display manufactures are working on 3D that requires no glasses. One will be released in Europe within the next 12 months. Which brings us to the networks. Will the 3D they broadcast be watchable with both active and passive glasses and will they need to change something to be watchable on a screen requiring no glasses at all? 3D will probably stick around because multiple major companies are investing billions in the technology. The question is why. Major profits is the answer. In three years you will see every single new display 3D capable. Every single blu-ray player will be 3D capable. 50-75% of main line broadcasts will be available in 3D. New TV's, new DVD players, new DVD's all flying off the shelves. Look up the names of the companies heavily invested in the future of 3D. It ain't going away.

Last night the Oklahoma State vs Arizona game was in 3D. I had to go to a neighbor's to watch it. I have Dish he has Directv. We both have 3d sets. We both bought Vizeo 3DTVs for about the same price as non 3D HDTV's.

The sucess of 3D will be in the price of TV's and the availability of programming. Vizeo has made the price difference a non factor. In fact, my 42 inch 3D plazma cost less than most 42 inch HDTVs. So getting 3D did not hurt financially and was more a plus element to the buying decision. I was also able to buy a Blu-Ray 3d DVD player for less than many non 3D Blu-Ray players. So again I had no cost hurt. The cost hurt comes with buying higher priced 3D DVDs. Most 3D offerings comes in sets that have the 3D version , the Blu-Ray version, and the DVD version. Not a bad idea for those that have each kind of DVD player in the house. However, it adds cost to the buy.

I now have a good collection of 3D DVDs. If there is no interest in 3D, why do I have so many of my friends coming over to watch my 3D content? They save the glasses they get from the movie theaters to use at my house. They never came over before 3D. It is sort of like when I got one of the 1st color tvs in the neighborhood. Likewise, I am going to friends who get 3D content via their TV providers. If Directv had the ability to play my Dish formated EHDs, I would switch for the extra 3D content. It doesn't cost more. So again it becomes a buying bonus element. OH!! watching a show in 3D is a more exciting TV experience for me and most of the people who have seen my content.

The multi-company competition thing is also hurting people interested in 3D with their exclusive bundles.

Several good movies are only available in 3D Blu-ray if you buy a certain manufacturer's 3DTV setup... in which case, you can't get all of those movies if you want them until some point where they become non-exclusive.

I understand offering a free movie with a bundle... that's cool... but making that the only way to get the movie seems like a misstep since most people aren't going to go buy 3 new 3DTVs to get 3 different movies that they can't get any other way.

If you think about it in terms of active versus passive, there is a similarity.

For 3D to settle out, the glasses need to be interchangeable.

Not really. As long as all 3d sets can access the same 3d content it doesn't matter whether a given living room has active glasses, passive glasses, or no glasses. It's as meaningless as what color the tv is. When you buy a set, you lock into that tech until you buy a different set (at which point you can stay the same, choose something different, etc) but at no point will your 3d movies be rendered worthless by chosing a different TV/glasses technology.

In the HDDVD vs Bluray war, the media wasn't interchangable so people adopted a "wait and see" attitude, not wanting to spring for a dozen movies only to have them be the loser.

When you buy a set, you lock into that tech until you buy a different set (at which point you can stay the same, choose something different, etc) but at no point will your 3d movies be rendered worthless by chosing a different TV/glasses technology.

That's a nice thought... but we really don't know that for sure. It's hard to say how long Blu-ray will be around.

Some folks are pushing for digital downloads... Others are thinking SD-RAM might replace optical media at some point.

So... it might be true that your current Blu-ray player will always play your current movies... but 5 years from now a new media player might not.

Heck... some Blu-ray players right now are not getting updates to play movies, and others have received updates that broke previously playable movies (Samsung is a great example here... I have some Disney movies that play with older firmware but not the newer firmware... and if I downgrade to play those, then I can't play some newer movies).

The point is... any time I hear "future-proof" I run away fast... because what that really means is "we are making this up as we go"...

Remember all the people who bought Blu-ray players that thought they were getting BD-Live ready and then found they couldn't upgrade? Or people who thought they could upgrade for 3D support but then couldn't?

There's always the possibility of the next new thing not being backwards compatible... and then if your current player breaks, you're out of luck.

Panasonic Corporation, the Official Worldwide Olympic Partner in the Audio and Visual Equipment category, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) announced their partnership agreement to make the London 2012 Olympic Games the first ever live 3D Olympic Games at the press conference of IFA2011, the global trade show for consumer electronics and home appliances, presents the latest products and innovations.

The partnership will produce the first HD 3D live broadcast in Olympic history, and will allow audiences around the globe to witness the world's greatest sporting event in immersive 3D.